I am an Immortal Essence
The total capacity of the mind, even at present, is to all intents and purposes, infinite
By their third session, it was clear that L. Ron Hubbard had found the ideal candidate in his former mentor. He turned off the lights, drew the blinds and told the subject to relax and remember his early childhood. John Campbell was smart and curious – but above all, willing to simply let go and believe.
Campbell recalled long-forgotten memories, dating all the way back to the moment of his birth – an incident he re-lived in great detail. There were other effects, as well. Suddenly, the editor’s lifelong chronic sinusitis disappeared. In its place, Hubbard had found a true believer and the first disciple of dianetics.
In spring of the following year, the prolific pulp writer outlined the philosophy in print for the first time. "Dianetics: A new science of the mind" appeared in the May 1950 issue of the Campbell-edited Astounding Science Fiction anthology. Its cover sports a scowling, ape-like humanoid standing cross-armed in front of a fortress on a cliff. The painting depicts a scene from Poul Anderson’s “The Helping Hand,” under which “Dianetics” received second-billing.
“The article describes a technique of mental therapy of such power that it will, I know, seem fantastic,” Campbell wrote in an introduction to the piece. “If so, it can also be said that the power of the human mind is, indeed, fantastic. I want to assure every reader, most positively and unequivocally, that this article is not a hoax, joke, or anything but a direct, clear statement of a totally new scientific thesis.”
Hubbard penned his own introduction, putting to rest any doubt of his own confidence in the subject.
The editor asked me to write this introduction to one of the most important articles ever to ever be published in Astounding Science Fiction, for some very good reasons. First, he wanted to make certain that you readers would not confuse Dianetics with thiotimoline [a reference to a faux science piece recently penned by Isaac Asimov] or with any other bit of scientific spoofing. This is too important to be misinterpreted. Second, he wanted to demonstrate that the medical profession—or at least part of it— was not only aware of the science of Dianetics, but had tested its tenets and techniques, and was willing to admit that there was something to it.
Hubbard’s book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was published shortly after. The book was an immediate success, selling north of 150,000 copies in year one. The partnership between the two men, however, had run its course. A falling out culminated with Campbell’s exit from the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation.
But Campbell’s desire to believe in something larger pre-dated his dalliance with dianetics, defined by a porous line between science fiction and unrealized science fact. The seeds of unlocked human mental capacity had been planted as far back as college. By the 1930s, they began to appear in his work.
"The total capacity of the mind, even at present, is, to all intents and purposes, infinite,” he wrote in 1937. “Could the full equipment be hooked into a functioning unit, the resulting intelligence should be able to conquer a world without much difficulty.”
His time with Hubbard not only cemented these notions for Campbell, it clarified that he was the right vessel to deliver them. “Peg,” the editor reportedly exclaimed, jolting up out of bed beside his wife, “I am an Immortal Essence!”
In October 1951, Campbell devoted column space to praising the foundations of Hubbard’s philosophy, while attempting to distance them from their author. “It will take a century or so to determine the full and proper rating of Hubbard’s work, but a first-order approximation at least can be estimated,” he wrote. “Briefly, dianetics itself is much less than Hubbard believed it to be —but is the essential, hitherto missing key to everything Hubbard claimed, and considerably more than he realized.”
Three months earlier, Astounding Science Fiction published “The Greatest Invention” by Jack Williamson. The story marked the debut of “psionics,” defined as a “unit of mental energy.” Campbell pushed his writers to embrace the concept across several stories published throughout the decade. Like Hubbard, Campbell sought out a machine that might be able to detect the physical manifestations of his theoretical work.
By 1956, he believed he’d found the answer in devices patented by Florida inventor, Galen Hieronymus. In February of that year, he published “The Science of Psionics” in Astounding, detailing “honest non-scientific research” using the machines. Such a label, he added, could be applied to the non-laboratory-based methods of any noble soul, including “Buddha, Jesus and President Eisenhower.” Such statements laid to rest any doubts that Campbell approached his work with roughly as much humility as his former friend and colleague.
The editor presented his work at that year’s New York Science Fiction Convention, noting tweaks he had made to Hieronymus’s machine. But Campbell’s promotion, which had helped kickstart interest in Hubbard’s work, failed to permanently bolster his own theories. Instead, he manage to alienate many of his writers and elicit scathing critiques from the skeptic community.
“It suggests once more how far from accurate is the stereotype of the science fiction fan as a bright, well-informed, scientifically literate fellow,” Martin Gardner would later write in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. “Judging by the number of Campbell’s readers who are impressed by this nonsense, the average fan may very well be a chap in his teens, with a smattering of scientific knowledge culled mostly from science fiction, enormously gullible, with a strong bent toward occultism, no understanding of scientific method, and a basic insecurity for which he compensates by fantasies of scientific power.”
Even Hieronymus eventually voiced his doubts about Campbell’s theories.
“I appreciated Mr. Campbell's interest in my work, but over the years since then, I have concluded that he set back the acceptance of my work at least a hundred years by his continual emphasis on what he termed the supernatural or 'magic' aspects of a mind-controlled device he built by drawing the schematic of my patented instrument with India ink,” the inventor wrote in his 1988 autobiography. “The energy flowed over the lines of this drawing because India ink is conducting, but it isn't worth a tinker's damn for serious research or actual treating.”
Sources:
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner
Bare-faced Messiah by Russell Miller
Astounding Science Fiction 1951-10: Vol 48 Issues 2 https://archive.org/stream/sim_astounding-science-fiction_1951-10_48_2/sim_astounding-science-fiction_1951-10_48_2_djvu.txt